Paloma comes over soon after eleven. When I open the door, she walks in sniffing the air appreciatively. ‘I could smell the aroma of baking frenzy just walking up the garden path.’
We go straight into the kitchen, where my two Cherry Bakewells in the big, shiny new flan cases I bought are almost ready. I peer into the oven. They’re beautifully golden on top and I reckon they’re done, so I grab the pink gingham oven gloves Paloma presented me with yesterday and take them out. My brand-new mesh trays are lined up on the bench, ready to be laden with cooling bakes. I go to my list and tick off ‘Cherry Bakewells’. So far, so good. I need to work steadily and methodically today and keep a cool head. Then, hopefully, I’ll be all prepared for tomorrow at ten a.m.
Tomorrow at ten a.m.! It seems a long way off. I might actually expire with excitement before then!
Before I start on the next bake, I grab the keys and we head over to the café to admire the work we did the previous afternoon.
Rowena’s tables and chairs seem as if they were bought specially to fit the space, they look so perfect. And there’s a single purple freesia in a little vase on every table, along with a simple white menu with navy type, designed by Paloma. I pick one of them up and try to imagine I’m a customer, looking at the menu for the first time. Would I be impressed?
‘Oh God, you haven’t found a spelling mistake, have you?’ asks Paloma anxiously.
I smile and shake my head. ‘No. It’s just perfect.’
I glance around at the lovely polished wood counter with the pretty cake stands on top and the second-hand till that scrubbed up really well. The shiny knives and teaspoons standing to attention in their stainless-steel containers alongside the white dish full of tiny paper tubes of sugar. The large pastel pictures of single flowers on the walls and the pretty pale wood flooring. The only thing needed now is the curtains to make the place perfect. And Lucy has said she’ll be here at seven this evening to hang them herself.
A strange feeling trickles through me. A sort of foreboding that takes me by surprise and makes me shiver. It’s all too perfect. What if something goes wrong? What if I’ve forgotten something vital? What if I’ve spent all my savings on a café that turns out to be a failure?
Next moment, Paloma shouts, ‘Is there any of that lilac paint left? I’ve missed a spot over here.’
‘Jeez, you just can’t get good staff these days,’ I joke, heading into the back room to look for the paint can. The uneasy feeling has passed. I’m just super nervous about tomorrow, that’s all …
Paloma gets to work touching up a dodgy area near the skirting board while I make yet another of my lists. I need to go to the bank later so I have plenty of change for the till. Phone Mum. Check the big sign on the main road is still in place …
‘By the way, I bought this,’ says Paloma, pressing the top on the paint tin, then pulling what looks like a rolled-up poster out of her bag. ‘I couldn’t resist.’
She grins at me. There’s a smudge of lilac paint on her cheekbone, which – weirdly – tones in with her eye-shadow. She opens out the poster to show me. It’s a picture of a giant cupcake with pink frosting, and the words: The More You Weigh, The Harder You Are To Kidnap. Stay Safe. Eat Cake.
I giggle. ‘That’s brilliant.’
‘I saw it and thought it would be perfect for the café.’
I pause, thinking. ‘It would be far more perfect in my kitchen.’
‘Not in here?’ Paloma frowns.
I sigh, not wanting to rain on her parade. ‘It’s just I’m not sure that’s the message I want to put across, is it? Come here and eat cake and put on weight?’
She laughs. ‘You sound like Olivia.’
‘I know. Weight is such a tricky subject, though, isn’t it? It’s hard to know what you can and can’t say without offending.’
‘You’ve got a point,’ she says cheerfully, rolling up the poster. ‘Best just keep the message simple: Cake is brilliant!’
I nod. ‘A little of what you fancy does you good?’
‘Everything in moderation.’ She hands me the poster. ‘For your kitchen wall. Consider it a launch gift.’
‘Thank you.’ I smile, taking the gift. ‘I’ll treasure it. By the way, you’ve got paint on your face.’
Back at the house, I get on with the mix for my chocolate fudge cakes, which came out on top on cake-tasting day. Paloma lingers over a coffee, checking her phone for messages. I know she’s hoping to hear from the bell-pull lady, Sylvia, with news of where her birth mum moved to. She puts down her phone looking dispirited, so there’s obviously no news. To cheer her up, I kid her that the only reason she’s still here is because she’s waiting for the chocolate cake bowl to lick. She firmly denies it but when I go to put the empty bowl in the sink, she shouts, ‘Oh no you don’t!’ then grabs it out of my hand and gets to work with the wooden spoon, scraping it out.
I can’t help laughing. Paloma is like a big kid sometimes.
I just wish she could meet a nice guy to appreciate her amazing qualities, but every time I bring up the subject, she says she’s far too busy with work to even think about romance.
I blame Rufus Black, the egotistical artist she went out with several years ago.
She was in awe of his talent and he swept her off her feet with his charm and his intensity. Paloma is quite a practical – some would even say cynical – sort of person. Definitely not a romantic like me. But she fell heavily for Rufus and I’d never seen her so deliriously happy.
